The European looked down at the machete Breer was carrying.
“Why did you come?” he wanted to know.
The Razor-Eater tried to reply, but his tongue rebelled against the duty. There was just a soft palate word that could have been “good,” or “got” or “God,” but was none of them.
“Have you come to be killed? Is that it?”
Breer shook his head. He had no such intention, and Mamoulian knew it. Death was the least of his problems. He raised the blade at his side to signal his intentions.
“I can wipe you out,” Mamoulian said.
Again, Breer shook his head. “Egg,” he said, which Mamoulian interpreted, and repeated as “Dead.”
“Dead . . .” Chad mused. “God in Heaven. The man’s dead.”
The European murmured the affirmative.
Chad smiled. Maybe they were going to be cheated of the destroying wave. Perhaps the Reverend’s calculations had been wrong, and the Deluge wouldn’t be on them for a few more months. What did it matter? He had stories to tell-such stories. Even Bliss, with all his talk of the demons in the soul of the hemisphere, hadn’t known about scenes like this. The Saint watched, licking his lips with anticipation.
In the hallway, Whitehead had managed to drag himself three or four yards away from the front door, and he could see Marty, who had managed to stand. Leaning on the lintel of the bathroom door, Marty felt the old man’s eyes on him. Whitehead raised a beckoning hand. Groggily, Marty lurched into the hallway, his presence ignored by the actors in the gaming room. It was dark out here; the light in the gaming room, that livid candlelight, was all but sealed off by the partially closed door.
Marty knelt at Whitehead’s side. The old man took hold of his shirt.
“You’ve got to fetch her,” he said, the voice almost faded. His eyes bulged, there was blood in his beard, and more coming with each word, but his hold was strong. “Fetch her, Marty,” he hissed.
“What are you talking about?”
“He has her,” Whitehead said. “In him. Fetch her, for Christ’s sake, or she’ll be there forever, like the others.” His eyes flicked in the direction of the landing, remembering the scourge of Muranowski Square. Was she there already? A prisoner under the tree, with Vasiliev’s eager hands on her? The old man’s lips began to tremble. “Can’t . . . let him have her, boy,” he said. “You hear me. Won’t let him have her.”
Marty had difficulty sewing the sense of this together. Was Whitehead suggesting that he should find his way into Mamoulian and retrieve Carys? It wasn’t possible.
“I can’t,” he said.
The old man registered disgust, and let go of Marty as though he’d discovered he had hold of excrement. Painfully, he turned his head away.
Marty looked toward the gaming room. Through the gap in the door he could see Mamoulian moving toward the unmistakable figure of the Razor-Eater. There was frailty on the European’s face. Marty studied it for a moment, and then looked down at the European’s feet. Carys lay there, her face startled by cessation, her skin bright. He could do nothing; why didn’t Papa leave him be to run away into the night and heal his bruises? He could do nothing.
And if he ran; if he found a place to hide, to heal, would he ever wash away the smell of his cowardice? Would this moment-the roads dividing, and dividing again-not be burned into his dreams forever? He looked back at Papa. But for the feeble movement of his lips he could have already been dead. “Fetch her,” he was still saying, a catechism to be repeated until his breath failed. “Fetch her. Fetch her.”
Marty had asked something similar of Carys-to go into the lunatic’s lair and come back with a story to tell. How could he now not return the favor? Fetch her. Fetch her. Papa’s words were fading with every beat of his failing heart. Maybe she was retrievable, Marty thought, somewhere in the flux of Mamoulian’s body. And if not, if not, would it be so hard to die trying to fetch her, and have an end to roads dividing, and choices turning to ash?